This Morning: No FB, GOOG Ban In Turkey, Icahn Will Battle For PayPal Spinoff

By Teresa Rivas

Turkish President Abdullah Gul has rejected any notion of a ban on Facebook (FB), Google (GOOG) and YouTube, as previously suggested by the nation’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. As Reutersreports, Erdogan had suggested the bans in a recent TV interview, arguing that they were being used by his enemies to spread false accusations of corruption, but Gul said that the closure of the sites was “out of the question.” Such a ban isn’t entirely unthinkable, given that corruption charges have roiled the Turkish government of late and YouTube was previously banned in the country until 2010 in reaction to videos the government found offensive. Turkey is one of the top 15 countries for Facebook users.

Speaking of Facebook, WSJ’s Digitsreports that the site has redesigned its web news feed to make it look more like the social media giant’s mobile app. The move comes after a radical redesign hinted at in 2013, but that was ultimately pulled back after negative feedback. As with other Facebook innovations, users will get the new style whether they want it or not.

Late yesterday, VirnetX Holding announced that a district court in Texas has issued a public version of its previously sealed verdict in its lawsuit against Apple (AAPL). The decision awards the company 0.98% % “on adjudicated products and products not colorably different from those adjudicated at trial that incorporate any of the FaceTime or VPN on Demand features found to infringe at trial,” according to Briefing.com.

Carl Icahn told fellow eBay (EBAY) shareholders that he has “not yet begun to fight” in terms of getting the online auctioneer to spinout its PayPal unit. As Reutersreports, Icahn argues that PayPal and eBay would be served better with two separate management teams focused on each organization’s core business, and PayPal, once free from eBay, could enter into more strategic partnerships, even if those come from eBay’s competitors.

Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Macquarie.

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There are 2 comments

MARCH 7, 2014 1:22 P.M.

me wrote:

I'm tired of hearing other countries ban US companies stories. Any countries ban US companies, we should ban them here. Especially China bans almost all us companies. [China wants to keep fortunes for themselves ONLY & not willing to share fortunes with others.]

MARCH 8, 2014 6:53 P.M.

Philip Cohen wrote:

Notwithstanding that I am otherwise a vociferous critic of eBay, this time I have to agree with Johnny Ho that eBay should not let go of “PreyPal”. Without its existing integrated relationship with the eBay marketplace, the value of the clunky “PreyPal” would be reduced greatly (eBay actually generates ~30% of PayPal new users with no customer acquisition costs for PayPal and half of PayPal's profits come from transactions on eBay where “PreyPal” is well integrated and virtually mandated); and, worse still, without “PreyPal”, the value of the eBay marketplace would be reduced by some 40% (“PreyPal” currently contributes ~42% of eBay’s profits) …

I hate to admit it, but for once Johnny Ho has got it right; Carl Icahn may well be right on many other aspects of eBay but with respect to “PreyPal” he clearly has no understanding of the value of the inextricable and mutually supporting nature of the incestuous relationship between these two clunky, disingenuous, unscrupulous, commercial entities, and in particular, the precariousness of PayPal’s clunky business model …

And, notwithstanding the amount of disingenuous noise that constantly emanates from the eBay Dept of Spin, “PreyPal” is a clunky middleman. in the main riding precariously, at the pleasure of the retail banks, on the backs of the retail banks existing payments systems, and “PreyPal” has little more than one percent (~1.1%) of the world’s total payments business (and even then much of its payers’ funds are sourced via MasterCard/Visa); the “bankcards”, MasterCard and Visa, have ~90% of this market between them and Amex has another ~8%, and both MasterCard and Visa have recently launched their own professional mobile/plastic POS/online digital wallets … Hello "MasterPass"; goodbye clunky "PreyPal"—it has not been nice knowing you …

The reality is that the clunky PreyPal’s “best before” date is fast approaching; as a “stand-alone” operation that “best before” date would simply arrive even sooner …

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Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.